Conference Session

Division Experimentation & Lab-oriented Studies: Mechanical Engineering and Control

Collection

2015 ASEE Annual Conference & Exposition

Authors

John E Matsson, Oral Roberts University; Justice Boisselle, Oral Roberts University

Tagged Divisions

Division Experimentation & Lab-Oriented Studies

using SolidWorks, and ANSYS Fluent software was used by a third studentwho was not on the senior capstone team to simulate the Kelvin-Helmholtz instability.IntroductionThis project involved the design, building and testing of a Kelvin-Helmholtz instabilityapparatus by undergraduate engineering students. The laboratory will enable students toconduct visualizations of the waves that develop due to the instability.The Kelvin-Helmholtz instability is a classical problem originally studied by Helmholtz 1and Kelvin2. The mechanism causing the instability has been studied in detail by Lamb3,Bachelor4, Drazin and Reid5, Chandrasekahr6, Craik7, and many others. The Kelvin-Helmholtz instability can appear at the interface of two fluid layers flowing with

Conference Session

Division Experimentation & Lab-Oriented Studies: Pedagogy of Lab-Oriented Courses

Collection

2015 ASEE Annual Conference & Exposition

Authors

Bridget M. Smyser, Northeastern University; Gregory J Kowalski, Northeastern University; Andrew F. Carbonar, Northeastern University

Tagged Divisions

Division Experimentation & Lab-Oriented Studies

Pedagogical Best PracticesAbstractThe pedagogy of laboratory courses has been well discussed in the literature, but the extent towhich these best practices are incorporated into laboratory experiment design varies wildly. AtNortheastern University, various capstone design teams over the years have been tasked withdesigning new experimental apparatus for the undergraduate teaching laboratories along withappropriate lab handouts and other instructional material. In many cases, the students involved inthese projects have taken the lab class for which they are designing the experiment and havereported negative experiences, and therefore are motivated to try to improve the class for futurestudents. Student designed labs have the potential to reduce burden

Conference Session

Division Experimentation & Lab-Oriented Studies: Bring-Your-Own-Experiments 1

Collection

2015 ASEE Annual Conference & Exposition

Authors

Harry Courtney Powell, University of Virginia; Joanne Bechta Dugan, University of Virginia

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Division Experimentation & Lab-Oriented Studies

one-semester capstone class. These half-courses allow students to exploreembedded system interfacing or higher-level embedded concepts while planning andinvestigating ideas for their capstone project.Our objective in this presentation is to give other educators working with courses in EmbeddedComputing a description of our laboratory experiments that have been shown to provide studentswith a contextual basis for the relevance of the in-lab experience1. We will describe theseexperiments in a high level way and show how they build on earlier BYOE presentation materialfrom the University of Virginia. In showing how we structured these experimental courses, alongwith the actual experiments, we provide insight on how individual institutions may

Conference Session

Division Experimentation & Lab-Oriented Studies: Pedagogy of Lab-Oriented Courses

Collection

2015 ASEE Annual Conference & Exposition

Authors

Rupa Purasinghe, California State University, Los Angeles; John E. Shamma; Brian Phan, California State University of Los Angeles ; Howard Lum, California State University Los Angeles

Tagged Divisions

Division Experimentation & Lab-Oriented Studies

Paper ID #12495Bringing Lifeline Research to Vertically Integrated Classrooms via a Four-Point Bending Test of a PipeDr. Rupa Purasinghe, California State University, Los Angeles Dr. Purasinghe is a Professor of Civil Engineering at California State University at Los Angeles and coordinates Freshman Civil Engineering Design and Capstone Design courses as well as Computer Aided Structural Analysis/Design and Experimentation Lab. Please note that this paper has several co-authors as well.Mr. John E. Shamma John E. Shamma is the Facility Planning Team Manager for the Metropolitan Water District of Southern California

Conference Session

Division Experimentation & Lab-Oriented Studies: Bring-Your-Own-Experiments 2

Collection

2015 ASEE Annual Conference & Exposition

Authors

Bridget M. Smyser, Northeastern University

Tagged Divisions

Division Experimentation & Lab-Oriented Studies

highly beneficial to thestudents, but it is also beneficial to the instructor and teaching assistants. The instructors need todo much less hands on work during the lab sessions, and can instead guide, suggest, and answerconceptual questions. Since it is virtually impossible to break the apparatus, short of dropping iton the floor, it is possible to let even large numbers of students touch and explore the equipment.An added unexpected benefit was the increase in the number of students who asked to borrowthe strain gauge indicator boxes for capstone design projects and student competition teams.Prior to the new experiment, very few capstone design students incorporated strain gauges intotheir design. Despite having taken the Measurements course

Conference Session

Best Paper Presentations

Collection

2015 ASEE Annual Conference & Exposition

Authors

Harry Courtney Powell, University of Virginia; Ronald D. Williams P.E., University of Virginia; Robert M. Weikle II, University of Virginia; Maite Brandt-Pearce, University of Virginia

Tagged Divisions

Division Experimentation & Lab-Oriented Studies

-traditional topics such as working with CAD and printed circuit design. Additionally itoffers students an introduction to non-linear circuit elements and modeling concepts. Many ofour students have participated in "Maker" and robotic events before coming to the University,and we believe that keeping this element of experience in the classroom is a valuable tool inmaintaining student interest. It also amortizes the learning curve required for these tools overseveral semesters, which will be of benefit when they enter the fourth year and are required to doa Capstone design project. We employ Multisim™ and UltiBoard™ from National InstrumentsInc. as our tool chain8.There were 2 sections of this course, a 3 hour section that met twice a week, and a 2